I scrambled over some layered limestone and at the highest point of the island, which was not very high, paused to fill my pipe and gaze out over the sea. The water was very clear. I could see the sandy bottom some eight feet below and, further out, the water bubbled green over a coral reef. The lighthouse, from there, seemed to be on the island, a fold of the landscape hiding the stretch of water between. Seagulls looped around the grey tower and the beacon flashed with regularity, almost invisible in the glaring sunlight. I wondered why Sam Jasper left the light on in the daytime - if it was normal procedure, or if he had simply forgotten? Sitting on the limestone shelf I smoked contemplatively for a while. But it was too hot to enjoy the tobacco. I tapped the pipe out and walked on and, in a short time, came upon the tall, metal-meshed fence. It ran down to the edge of the water and I could go no further. Beyond, I knew, was the beach that Mary liked and which was now barred to her.
Then, suddenly, I laughed.
There was a hole in the fence.
With all that supposedly tight security and the monitored telephones and the secrecy, it struck me as very funny that the fence should be breached. Several strands of wire had been snapped off and bent back. The gap was large enough for a man to slip through and, for a moment, I was sorely tempted to do so - to enter that secret compound and see what I could see. I had actually moved up to the fence before I thought better of it. I would not be able to get into the buildings and would no doubt be apprehended before I’d gone very far and it was hardly worth compromising myself for the sake of a stroll through the grounds. I still thought it amusing that the security had been breached and wondered if someone, like Mary, resenting the barrier, had cut through to get to the further beach - or simply to aggravate the intruders.
I pulled a strand of the wire out and inspected the end. It hadn’t been cut, it had been broken or twisted apart. It was heavy-gauge, hard to bend, and on one jagged end I noticed a dark stain. It looked like blood.
Then I heard voices.
I couldn’t make out the words, but they sounded excited and they weren’t far away. I looked around, thinking to secrete myself and eavesdrop, but there was no place to hide near the fence. I didn’t care to be found there, by the break. Innocent of it, I nevertheless felt guilty. I turned away and went back over the limestone shelf and sat down on the far side. I felt excited, as if I were the quarry in a chase. The voices were yet closer and I risked a glance over the rocks.
Two men in naval whites were coming along the fence on the far side, following the line. As I looked, they came to the break. One of them cursed and both looked disturbed. They were armed and the flaps on their holsters were unsnapped. They looked around, standing back to back and whispering together over their shoulders. One shrugged. They were nervous and I caught a few snatches of their talk - enough to discern that they were arguing over who should remain guarding the break and who should report it. I wasn’t sure which duty was the less desirable one. But then one, the one who had cursed, said, ‘Well, what’s the point? He’s already got through, he won’t be coming back this way.’ They whispered some more, then both of them started back the way they’d come, heads turning as they looked around. I waited until they were out of sight. Then I slid down the limestone shelf and headed back to town.
The guards hadn’t thought the break in the fence was funny at all.
Neither did I now.
* * * *
Walking back, I passed close to the lighthouse.
The rock bridge leading out was just emerging from the water, like a fossilised spine excavated by the tide. At the end of that spine the lighthouse reared up and wailed its mournful warning and the regular, pale beat of the beacon flashed like a charm in a hypnotist’s hand. I paused and gazed at that tall pharos rising from the sea. How like a symbol for man’s conceit, I thought. The grey tower aspires to the heavens, yet is rooted in the rocks...and man, considering the stars, disturbs the grass. What did man do, atop his shining towers, up there in those cloistered domains? Had he climbed there to a purpose, or was he no more than those swooping gulls who, having dined on filth, rise above the clouds?
I went on; I had decided to call on Mary Carlyle.
* * * *
VII
The Coast Guard Depot was a small white building with green shutters on the windows and a step before the door. It looked more like a country cottage than anything else. The door was open and I looked in. There was an office at the front and a store room at the back. Mary Carlyle was sitting behind a desk with some papers spread out in front of her and Jerry Muldoon was balanced on the corner of the desk, one leg swinging back and forth, hands clasped over his knee. Mary gave me a bright smile. Jerry might possibly have looked a little annoyed at my entrance, but nothing serious. I supposed they had been flirting.
’I see you survived the night,’ Jerry said.
’Neither stabbed nor shot, although I was well regaled with tales of stabbing and shooting.’
’Mostly true, probably.’
’Didn’t you arrest a man there once, Jerry?’ Mary put in, shifting some papers without looking at them.
’Why, yes. More than one, but only one that was serious. Shrimper that killed his wife, then got carried away and killed his wife’s sister and carved his own brother up a mite. Had to point my gun at him.’ He said that as if it distressed him. He shook his head once and his jaw was so heavy that it acted as a counterweight, so that his head swung a couple more times by inertia. ‘I locked this fella up in the jail and he couldn’t understand why. He kept asking me why in hell he had to get locked up. He was serious. I said, “For crissake, you just killed two women and wounded a guy,” and he looked at me, sort of puzzled; said, “But that was family.” And he meant it. Didn’t think the law had any business interfering in a family matter. They’re like that, shrimpers. He looked so puzzled that I felt sorry for him; for what he thought was unjust. Funny. Guy kills two women and I feel sorry for him.’
‘You’re all heart, Jerry.’
‘Why...yes,’ he said.
I said, ‘I don’t expect you’ve heard from Elston?’
‘Didn’t he see you? He promised...’
‘He stopped at the inn yesterday. But just as he was starting to talk, a man came in...man called Larsen...’ I saw that they both knew the man, or the name...‘and scared Elston off. Not, I hope, for good.’
‘Oh. Damn,’ she said. ‘It’s no wonder. Larsen is head of security. Nasty sort, I should think. Did he suspect anything?’
‘I don’t know. He’s the sort of man that always looks suspicious. But Elston acted so damn flustered that he could have given it away.’
She gnawed at her lower lip.
‘I’ll talk to him...’ she began, and then the phone rang. She smiled. ‘But first I’ll have to talk to Sam Jasper, I see. That’s the direct line to the lighthouse.’
She reached for the phone. Jerry started to say something to me, then stopped. His teeth snapped shut. Mary’s face had recoiled from the receiver as the shout came out. Jerry and I looked at each other. We had heard the words clearly enough. ‘Help! For crissake, get some help out here...’ Mary, looking startled, held the phone out and the sheriff took it. The cry for help came again, ‘He’s trying to get into the lamproom! He’s trying to claw through the damn floor! Get me some help out here, Mary...fast!’
Jerry said, ‘Hold on! This is Muldoon. What in hell are you yelling about, Sam?’
‘Muldoon? Thank God. A berserker, Jerry. Tried to damn well kill me...after I went and saved his damn life, too...tell you he’s trying to claw through the floor...he’d of killed me, he hadn’t been full of water...’ His voice was disjointed and terrified. ‘Listen! You hear him clawing? Can’t you hear it?’
‘Hold on, old fella. I’ll be right out.’
Jerry hung up the phone with Sam Jasper still shouting over the cable. The last words I heard were, ‘...bastard bit me!’
Jerry looked at Mary.
> ‘Think he’s slipped a cog?’
‘No,’ she said, definitely.
‘Ummm. Fella that lives in a lighthouse...Well, I’d best get out there.’ He looked at his wristwatch. ‘How’s the tide?’
‘It’s out,’ she said. ‘But wait. Take the launch from here, that’ll be faster.’
He nodded. I touched his arm.
‘Mind if I come with you?’
He hesitated. ‘Can’t do no harm,’ he said. Then he said, ‘You got some idea on this?’ I shrugged. Mary was looking at me, her face clouded and worried, and she wasn’t worried for Sam Jasper’s sanity.
* * * *
Jerry strode across the water from the dock to the launch and I jumped in right behind him, nimble as hell. Mary was pulling at the painter to cast us off as Jerry started the engines. She slipped on the wet dock and banged her knee against the iron staunchion. The skin split. It looked painful. She freed the line and tossed it to Jerry. ‘Get that gash fixed,’ he said. ‘You get coral dust in that, it’ll be nasty.’ She nodded quickly and stepped back. A trickle of blood ran down her skin. She gave us a nervous sort of half-wave and then Jerry was taking the boat out of the harbour fast. A couple of red-sailed Sunfish were gliding across the roadstead and then bobbled perilously in our wash, one of the sailors shaking a fist at us. We turned towards the lighthouse. It thrust up beyond the slope of the island, then slid away as the angle changed. I could see the line of black rocks extending from the island to the larger rock on which the lighthouse rested. The sea was lashing around the rocks, white and foamy. They were slippery with seaweed. I was just as glad we had taken the boat; that rocky bridge was not to my liking. Jerry was watching the rocks carefully, coming in parallel with them on the shortest course to the lighthouse.
We both saw the figure at the same time.
‘What the hell...?’Jerry said.
The man was on the rocks, coming from the lighthouse, leaping and bounding as if unconcerned about the treacherous footing - or so terrified that panic dictated his movements. He wore a long white coat, the tails flapping behind him like broken wings, and his face was...terrible. His eyes were rolled back white and hollow and white foam sprayed from his lips like an echo of the foam breaking at his feet. He sprang to a rock, hunkered down for an instant, then bounded to the next; slipped but leaped forwards before he could fall. His mouth was open, lips squared back from his teeth, a grimace of torment.
‘Is that Sam?’ I asked.
‘Not Sam,’ Jerry said.
The launch had headed for the rocks as Jerry stared at the bounding figure. He corrected, swinging the prow back out. I could sense his indecision, whether to turn the boat after the fleeing figure. But then he looked at the lighthouse.
‘We’d best see to Sam first,’ he said.
He hadn’t drawn his gun, either, and I liked him for his priorities.
* * * *
Jerry went up the winding staircase first and I followed close behind. The staircase ended at a trap door which led up to the lamproom. The trap door was steel...and it was smeared with lines of blood and tracks of gore. Pieces of flesh and fingernail were pasted, by blood, to the steel... as if the man who had clawed at that door had been buried alive and was clawing at his crypt in final desperation. I tilted my head back, gaping upwards, and as I did so a shard of flesh dropped from the door and fell sluggishly past my face. I thought of John Tate’s description of the man who had broken his arm against the unliftable weight. But it was not right...the figure on the rocks had been more vigorous and his attack upon the trap door a thing of fury.
Jerry was shaking his head, looking at those gory tracks.
‘Sam! It’s Muldoon!’ he called. There was no response. ‘It’s Jerry, Sam!’
‘Jerry? You get him?’ Sam called from above, his voice distorted through the floor between us, drawn out and quivering as if his words were elastic.
‘He’s gone. I saw him on the rocks.’
There was another pause while Sam considered this; then; ‘You got a gun, Jerry?’
‘Yeah, I got a gun. Open up.’
The bolt rasped slowly from the socket and the trap door lifted a few inches. Sam Jasper peered out, balanced at the edge, ready to slam the door closed again. He was an old man with wild white hair and darting fear in his eyes. Jerry stepped back to let Sam see him. Sam gave a little whine of relief and let the heavy door drop back with a clang. He was sitting on the floor. The big lamp was flashing behind him.
‘He bit me, Jerry,’ Sam said, quite calmly.
Then he began to rave...
* * * *
VIII
Dr Winston was a middle-aged, likeable fellow, who ran the local clinic. There was no hospital on the island and Winston was the only resident doctor - bar those, an unknown number, within the compound. He was not a native, but he had come there years before, simply because Pelican Cay needed a doctor and he needed nothing more than to practise his craft. Jerry Muldoon told me these things while we brought Sam Jasper back from the lighthouse, and I liked Winston the moment I saw him. He was fat; his belly hung over his belt and was obviously never subjected to exercise. He chainsmoked with nicotine-stained fingers and was short of breath. A certain colour to his cheeks and configuration of his nose hinted at a fondness for the vat. I figured straight off that this was a man one could trust.
When Jerry and I helped Sam Jasper into the clinic, Winston didn’t seem surprised; seemed the sort that was seldom surprised by anything. Sam was between us, stumbling and twitching. He’d been in shock and mostly incoherent since we found him in the lamproom. Winston asked no questions. He looked at Sam’s eyes and told us to get him onto a bed. Sam stretched out obediently, almost as if going to sleep, then sat up abruptly and looked around the room fearfully, turning his whole head while his eyes remained fixed in their sockets. Jerry kept a hand on his bony shoulder and Winston summoned his nurse; instructing her to administer a sedative. He examined Sam, his eyes darting about. Sam had a gash on his forearm and a slighter gash on the back of his hand, nothing that looked serious.
‘Human?’ Winston asked Jerry.
‘What?’
‘Those bites. Human, are they?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Thought so. Seen a few of those.’
He spoke to the nurse again, telling her to give Sam an anti-tetanus shot and antibiotics. She bustled efficiently about, a matronly, grey-haired woman with kindly eyes, and Winston started to question Jerry about how it had happened.
Then Sam, sedated and calmer now, sat bolt upright.
‘It was a hell of a thing,’ he said.
‘I’ll get him, Sam,’ Jerry said, but Sam didn’t hear.
‘Hell of a thing, I say,’ he repeated.
‘You ever see him before?’
‘What? See him? Naw, not before I pulled him out of the water. He was from up there.’
‘Up where?’ Jerry asked.
Winston hovered near, hands clasped behind his back, ready to halt the questioning if Sam began to get agitated. I hoped that didn’t happen, I wanted to hear what Sam Jasper had to say - to fit his story in with John Tate’s and Elston’s and - the break in the fence.
‘Why, up the compound,’ Jasper said.
‘Now, Sam, how do you know that?’
‘He was wearing one of them white kimonos, as sick people wear in hospitals, is how. Hell of a thing.’
‘You say you saved him...pulled him out of the water?’
Jasper nodded. The nurse was standing beside the bed with a hypodermic. She looked at Dr Winston and Winston looked at Jerry. Jerry stepped back a pace, waiting for her to put the needle in before he continued his questioning, but Jasper was talking now and didn’t stop. He said, ‘First I saw of him, he was clinging to the rocks. On the seaward side, see, as if he’s hiding from someone on the island. I see him from behind, see that white coat. Figured him for a drunk, but for that white coat. The water’s lapping at his feet an
d he keeps shifting from one foot to the other, like he don’t want to get his shoes wet. I called out to him but he didn’t hear me, least he paid me no mind. A couple of seagulls started diving at him, flying around his head, he slapped at them like they was flies.’ The nurse slipped the needle into his arm and pressed the plunger. Jasper glanced at her as if the process interested him, but he kept speaking to Jerry, from the side of his mouth. ‘Well, then he slips off the rocks and falls into the water. Don’t guess he could swim. He was clinging to the rocks with both hands and he’s screaming, but he’s screaming without making no noise, if you follow me. Screaming silent, mouth wide open but no sound coming out. Well, I didn’t much fancy chancing my feet on them rocks, so I got out the rowboat. Time I rowed out he was still clinging to the rocks. Like a limpet, he was. I got the idea that he was too scared to pull himself out...scared of the water, see...like in a dream when you can’t run away from what scares you. Must have been powerful strong, the way he was thrashing about you’d have thought he’d break his own grip. I got the boat up aside him, wedged up against the reef, and reached down to give him a hand. He looked up at me. Make you shudder, his face would. His mouth was wide open like his jaw was bust, I could see all his cavities and that little doodad what hangs down in your throat, but I couldn’t see naught but white in his eyes, they was all rolled back like a horse in a fire. I pulled him into the boat. Wasn’t a big man, nor heavy, but he was strong. Took a grip on my arm like a vice. But he never seemed to see me, he just sat in the boat all dumb. I figured it was best to row back to the lighthouse and phone in for help than to row to the island and have to walk the guy into town, and that’s what I did. Had a job getting him out of the boat; had to pull the boat right up on the shore before he would step out. He could walk, all right, but he was wobbling, figured as he’d gulped down plenty of water. Soon as I get him into the lighthouse I take to pumping him out, got him coughing and spitting. All of a sudden he shakes himself like a wet dog.’ Jasper shook himself as he said this, perhaps demonstrating what the other man had done - or perhaps shuddering involuntarily. ‘Then he turns on me. Like a wild animal, all teeth and nails, and he’s strong. I tried to hold him but he just throws me aside and bites me in the arm. Well, this puts a fright to me. He’s crazy and he’s plenty strong - it’s a good thing he’s still wobbly. I get away and run up the stairs with this guy snatching at my heels. Got into the lamproom and bolted the trap. Just in time, too. And what’s he to do but try to claw right through the trap. I mean, it’s steel, even a crazy fella ought to see that, but he claws away at it. I was so shook up I got to thinking he might claw through, at that. That’s when I phoned in...’
Dark Terrors 5 - The Gollancz Book of Horror - [Anthology] Page 68
